


beyond the wardrobe.

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: Narnia Musings [65]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Sibling Love, in which the kings and queens of home return to England freezing, in which they comfort one another as the seasons change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29889000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: England is a cold, wet, foggy thing after Narnia’s blooming springs, trembling with a war none of them can reach. In the mornings, their mother snatches the papers from Peter, from Edmund, from Susan, with a smile and shaking hands, as if that could keep them safe, somehow, in this kettle barely boiling over that London has become.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Helen Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Series: Narnia Musings [65]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714795
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	beyond the wardrobe.

England is a cold, wet, foggy thing after Narnia’s blooming springs, trembling with a war none of them can reach. In the mornings, their mother snatches the papers from Peter, from Edmund, from Susan, with a smile and shaking hands, as if that could keep them safe, somehow, in this kettle barely boiling over that London has become.

The winters are cold, damp things, now, and when they loom, Susan wraps her arms around Edmund, presses her lips against his forehead, and holds his hands in hers – steady and unflinching and with her heart still beating. He rests his head against her clavicles and his feet against the windowsill, and grows quiet, in the winters, and still. 

Their mother makes him Turkish Delight, once. 

Edmund doesn’t cry. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t look at their mother and the way she looks like the witch, with her hands drawn inwards, with her red, red smile. Instead, he finishes the entire plate, until his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth and his heart is stuck in his throat – his words somewhere in his gullet.

Their mother smiles.

When she leaves the kitchen, Peter makes coffee – heaped tablespoons and the gas fire as high as it will go. His hands tremble against the handle of the kettle. Lucy climbs into Edmund’s lap, presses her ear against his chest and her fingers against his pulse point.

Like that, their heartbeats in each other’s chests, they stay there.

Their mother doesn’t notice.

The springs are full with rain spilling over its edges, and when Lucy cannot bear to look at the trees anymore, still and quiet as they are, Peter slips into bed with her, a song from beyond this world on his lips, his shaking hands in her hair, cut into jagged edges at her jaw. Edmund joins them, halfway through the night, and Lucy wraps her arms around his waist, her life around his skin.

Susan doesn’t join them until the early morning hours, with a smile on her lips – un-painted, un-adorned in this England, she helps Lucy into the only one of her dresses that doesn’t scratch her at the neck. She braids her hair, short as it is, sharp at the tips, like the ends of her canines.

Lucy is pale here, with barely a freckle on her skin, so Susan steals their mother’s make up and paints every freckle back onto Lucy’s face, an echo of all the kisses and all the loves that once raised them.

Their mother doesn’t notice.

In the summers, the sun barely breaks through the clouds. Susan’s hair barely reaches her shoulders and sometimes, at noon, she sits by the windowsill and the sparse mid-day sun, with her hair in perfect, heated curls, with her skin pale and pulled taut over her bones.

Susan doesn’t stop smiling.

Their mother runs her hands through her hair, through curls that take hours to shape, and Susan smiles at her, with her pink lips and her big, dark eyes. Outside, London boils over, and Susan smiles, still.

Peter spends almost the whole day in the kitchen, on days like these, with his shaking hands and his brows furrowed, with pastries and jam made of rationed sugar, until he stands, elbows-deep, with a spread of food in front of what was once a High Queen, smiling softly.

He tucks his legs underneath himself and Susan to his side, and she smiles at him, still, with sugar like pearls on her skin.

In the afternoon, Lucy spreads herself on Susan’s lap, laughing, pulls Edmund along with her, and like this, stretched fourfold, they stay by the window until the sun sets.

Their mother doesn’t notice.

In the autumn, when the leaves grow yellow and red and then brown, Peter stops reaching for the papers each morning. He fills his teacup up only by half, now, and grabs it with both of his hands. His face is smooth, and childish, yet.

At night, his siblings wake him. Susan holds flashlight, Lucy their father’s razor, plucked from the back of the cupboard where their mother can barely stand looking at it. Edmund holds onto the shaving lather. Like this, they pull him out of bed and into the chair in front of Susan’s mirror.

He leans his head back, Susan’s lips pressed against his cheek. Lucy sings softly under her breath, something that might have been an English nursery rhyme once. Something about lions and stone tables and blood dripping from all their teeth. Peter laughs softly.

Like this, they shave his smooth face, in the glow of the aurora, their voices smudged into one, laughter like the pitter-patter of the rain outside.

_– there is nothing in this world like a sibling, you see, with their hands in your hair, with their lips on your cheek, with their live breathing akin to yours. there is nothing in this world quite like the four Kings and Queens of Old, and the sky stretched across the four cardinal points of them._


End file.
